As we walked into the 24-plex movie theatre, my dad asked for some background on this movie he was taking me to see. Only while thinking of a way to phrase my response did I realize truly how disturbing the basic premise of my beloved book and its movie adaptation, “The Hunger Games” is: teenagers forced into a fight to the death for a complacent ruling class’s entertainment. I guess, though, by the success of the books and movie, that I am not the only one fascinated.

The movie compels the audience to root for the intense protagonist Katniss Everdeen from the start. A teenage archer hailing from District 12, a grim constituency of the omnipotent Capitol, she exudes rebellious strength and survival.

On the day of the reaping, soldiers dressed in sterile white corral every 12-to-18-year-old into the town square. The silently angry crowd watches as a peppy woman who resembles a clown draws Primrose Everdeen’s name, condemning her as a tribute to the Hunger Games.  In a panic, Katniss volunteers to be a tribute instead of her sister. The male tribute turns out to be Peeta Mellark, who has a connection to Katniss’s past.

Katniss and Peeta are whisked to the Capitol, the land “of crystal chandeliers and platinum doorknobs,” according to their garish chaperone from the reaping. Haymitch, their perpetually imbibed mentor, simply tells them to “accept the probability of your imminent death.”

The District 12 tributes spend the time leading up to the televised Games eating delicacies and sizing up their competition during training. The night before the games begin, a Ryan Seacrest-esque host interviews each tribute. Peeta’s interview reveals his supposed lifelong crush on Katniss.

The tension between Katniss’s friendship with her hunting partner Gale and this new potential interest teeters dangerously close to becoming a full-fledged love triangle, but the movie ultimately spares the audience from too much gagging.

When the games begin, however, no time is left for questions. Quick flashes of violence show vicious tributes dispatching other kids with knives or their bare hands. An evil pack of tributes prowl and heckle like a deadly middle school clique, which is essentially all they are: the movie firmly shifts the blame for all deaths from the tributes in the arena to the room of operators who hold the tributes’ lives at their fingertips.

The ruling government implies an America gone wrong: the seal is an eagle holding arrows sans olive branch, and a dastardly President reigns rather than leads.

Plenty of sequences are heart-poundingly suspenseful. The camera doesn’t linger long enough on the fascinatingly imagined fashions of Capitol residents. Also, I wanted more time to study the food.

“Nineteen Eighty-Four,” “Brave New World,” and now “The Hunger Games” are proof that dystopias fascinate people. And all in all, the scarily realistic tone, suspense, and the provocative themes form a quite entertaining movie.

Nonetheless, the righteous disdain for the Capitol adopted by the creators of the “The Hunger Games” cannot avoid extending to the audience members, who are entertained by the very things that the movie condemns. I felt distinctly guilty frivolously eating popcorn while I watched “The Hunger Games,” as though I was a citizen of the hated Capitol myself. “The Hunger Games” satisfactorily draws viewers in, but also leaves them with a feeling of self-consciousness that is difficult to ignore.